Everywhere I Go
by ajattra
Summary: AU. 2x13 Epitaph Two. What Echo means and will always mean to Alpha hasn't really changed in 10 years - only he himself has changed. Echo/Alpha. One-Shot.


**Challenge:** Can I start getting sexed already? Write Shippy fic. Any word count, any ship, any rating. **whedonland**

**Title:** Everywhere I go  
**Ship:** Alpha/Echo, slight Echo/Paul  
**Rating:** PG  
**Warnings:** dark themes, spoilers for 2x13  
**Word Count:** 1932

**Summary:** AU: Dollhouse 2x13 from Alpha's point of view (with a less creepy ending). What Echo means and will always mean to Alpha hasn't really changed in 10 years - only he himself has changed.

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**Everywhere I go**

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He had been nervous to see her again, nervous for not knowing what had happened to her since last time, because even though he had concurred his obsession, there was no concurring this love that scorched his chest. He was a good man, better than most in this fading world, yet he knew he didn't deserve her love.

Still seeing her decent from the ceiling to his paradise, he wasn't able to keep his heart from jumping or his from breath from growing thick.

"_Aaawww, hell."_

"_No, you'll have to keep digging if that's where you wanna end up."_

He appeared into view calmly and welcomed his old comrades with a sarcastic remark. She hesitated only for a moment before putting her arms around him and completing the circle, leaving everything else outside for that lovely moment until she let him go.

She was as radiant as ever, despite the cold glow in her eye and the hint of grey in her hair. This wasn't his innocent Echo, the Delilah that had lured him into insanity – no, this was a tarnished saint, a trinity not unlike himself. She showed different faces to them all: a warrior, a maiden and a tortured soul. He inhaled her musky, nervous scent – the kind she only had when she was distressed.

She mentioned Reno, as if she'd been truly worried and grieved his loss. This only furthered the growing warmth in his chest, damaging his calm efficiently. He told her the truth, but allowed her to misinterpret it. He hadn't lost the stomach for violence or standing by her side, no, he'd lost the stomach for fighting a futile fight to win her heart. So he had chosen a lone life, helping everyone else but himself.

He foolishly asked for Ballard, the man who'd helped shape this new version of him, and came to realize his demise struck him as much as it struck Echo. While Echo had foolishly loved him for years, unable to let him tear down her armour, Alpha had grown to respect the man despite _his personal shortcomings_. Ballard had been the one Echo had chosen and all Alpha could do was respect that.

It was Paul's sense of justice that had made him shed his skin all those years ago. It was Paul's feelings for Echo that had made him realize the sickness in his way of loving her. Alpha had thought that by hiding his continued existence from the world, he might forget and be forgotten, and that way she might be happy too. Instead she had continued to shut those closest to her out of her heart, unable to care so she would never experience loss the way Topher and Paul had.

He listened to Echo scream and throw things while he stood in the corridor, leaning against the wall, indecisive about his next course of action. He heard her confess her feelings for Paul and her regret over losing him before she could tell him. A part of him felt deep sorrow upon realizing that all that was left of Paul Ballard anymore was a shadow in a chimera's mind, a solitary voice in the midst of tens of others. Her confession of love twisted the knife in his heart, but somehow the pain was less now than it had been ten years ago.

Alpha stood there by the door, thinking about what to say to her to solace her. It was all so bizarre in his mind – the pain that Paul's absence brought to the Paul inside him, how his yearning for her had become inflamed again so quickly. All the voices in his head gathered to offer suggestions for saying something, but Paul was the only one that remained quiet. So they stood there together, silent and heartbroken, listening in as Priya calmed Echo down and said the things he would've wanted to say but didn't know how.

After it was clear that Topher was going to succeed, worry rose to Alpha's mind. What about him and Echo? Echo might remain the same, but that wasn't so sure with him. After years of fighting the murderous tide in his head he never wanted to revert to Carl William Craft again. He didn't want to disappear despite his fragile truce with himself. Yet he didn't wish to abandon Echo either, especially now that Ballard was gone. Who'd look after her, the most fragile and shielded creature he knew?

He held an undamaged wedge in his hands, wondering what would be right and fighting his own desires with sense and reason. He'd told Adelle he would be leaving to face the uncertain tomorrow alone, but he'd also wanted to give Echo a parting gift. Surely the Paul in his head wanted to be with her, no matter how unconventional the method was? Yet Alpha feared the loss of his moral compass, and that by taking Paul out he'd only be doing the same thing that the pulse might.

He writhed and placed the wedge on the desk, unable to make up his mind. He had the power to restore her happiness, but did he really want to? Was he the righteous man Ballard had been, or just a weak, selfish man? A smile crept across his face, but soon turned into rage as his hand flew over the wedge, slamming it across the wall. He watched it break apart, all the little pieces that would've been the storage to Paul falling on the floor. It was the voice of his failure.

"_It was a beautiful thought, but not what she needs."_

Paul's voice was as clear as when he'd still been alive and standing next to Alpha in Reno, expressing his distrust. But there was no one standing next to him and saying these words, which only increased his bewilderment and made him lean against one the cabinets, defeated. Alpha let his weight fall and slide down on the floor against the doors, doubting his sanity and cursing his desire to see her again as the cause of this decline.

"She's making me relapse again," he smiled and murmured to himself, amused by the absurdity of the situation. Here he was trying to show he'd truly changed and had only managed to selfishly ruin the gesture that was meant to absolve him, because he wasn't quite over _his love supreme_. The irony just didn't escape him.

But the voice insisted that it be heard and the message was clear and simple.

"_I had ten years with her, but couldn't make her mine. It's your turn now."_

Alpha couldn't pick himself up. He was supposed to be on the run by now, finding a quiet place, where he could stay until he knew how he was affected: A place where she wouldn't be there to suffer should he cease to exist. But instead he was here where it all began, sitting in this room, looking at the chair that had transformed him. He wanted to destroy it, keep it from ever touching anyone again, but still had the power to abstain from fulfilling this desire.

So he just sat waiting and contemplating. Somehow he had no desire to leave anymore. He just wanted to remain here, in his home. He'd found this place ravaged and in ruins and slowly put the pieces back together: buried Whiskey and all the other bodies, cleaned the bile stench of death from the walls of the dollhouse and even slept in his old pod. He'd looked at the claw marks in its walls, his dreamy scribbles of Echo, a piece of poetry struck in his head despite the wipes. There'd even been a drawing of Echo amid the papers of his profile.

His rubbed his chin clean from the tears he'd shed and sat still imagining and remembering how he'd once made her sit in that chair in order to release her. He'd longed for a companion; fallen in love with her even back when they'd been innocent creatures. He'd been more than a bit unwell back then, a lunatic with a single pure thought. Now his thoughts were scattered but he was in balance – But what about her?

Alpha conjured her image in his mind quickly, that distant figure who always showed courage no matter what the odds and gave a shoulder to lean on, truly caring for all her companions, but couldn't express love to those she cared for. He would always observe her from the distance and occasionally even ask her why it was so. She would merely disqualify his observations and argue against him, eventually seeking comfort in Paul's arms, only to leave his bed early in the morning with expressionless grief imprinted across her face. He used to think she did this to prove something to him.

Echo finally walked in, her melancholy gaze scanning the room in a routinely fashion when she noticed him. Surprise lit her face and finally gave it emotion he'd longed to see for awhile now.

"I thought you were gone," she said walking up to him and looked at him for a second through the veil of her long hair before bending her knees and sitting next to him like they'd done this many times before.

The situation might've seemed mellow to an outside viewer, but it was anything but. A tension build up quickly between them and it never ceased to exist no matter what their relationship was at any given time. Even while enemies they'd been alike and while never having been friends, they were always companions. Even Paul had seen this while watching them fight side by side in the heat of battle.

"I meant to leave," he confessed, his voice deep and almost intimate. He tried smile in his usual mellow and peaceful way, but couldn't quite get it right. He couldn't think of a single witty remark to say and salvage his fallen façade.

She knew what it was about though, because she experienced it too. Soon they would be the only living reminder of the past ten years, two freak shows of personalities and skills. And while the fight was over, there would be no need for them anymore. They weren't really human anymore and she didn't quite know where they would fit in this new world.

Echo inched closer to him, feeling sudden empathy take her over. "But you found yourself here instead," she smiled the slightest bit, knowing just what he felt. Her husky voice was softer than usually, somehow embracing.

"I know I should be alone when it all happens-," he started explaining, only to have her cut his speech, "No, you shouldn't."

Echo looked straight at him now. She had no one to spend the longest hour of her life with and she was sick of being alone. Especially now that Paul was gone, she understood more than better that she couldn't go on alone. Echo placed her head carefully against his shoulder, relaxing her neck only when she realized his tension vanished as well.

He moved his hand closer to hers, offering it silently. She observed his hand curiously, finally placing hers over it and wrapping her fingers around his. There was no telling what the future would hold, but they'd face it together.

He felt a smile emerge and the weight of the world shift from his shoulders as she leaned against him and held his hand in a firm but gentle grip.

"Just let me know in time, if you feel a sudden urge to blow up something," he whispered.

.

~ FIN


End file.
